Welcome to Hell
by Red Fez
Summary: Buffy reflects back on her life. And how different everything thing is since she got back from Heaven.


**AN: This is the first full piece of fanfiction that I've written for a TV show.**

**WARNING: Contains spoilers from all seasons (on TV, none of the comics).**

**WARNING: Contains a depressed Buffy.**

**Anyway. Read on!**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not, in fact, own Buffy the Vampire Slayer.**

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The Summers' house lay quiet in the night. This was the first time in a few weeks that the house was truly silent. No Potentials lay awake down in the living room, talking and laughing in hushed tones. No Spike down in the basement, moving things around. No Giles and Willow staying up late, researching whatever bad guy was after them next. No Xander having to make impromptu repairs on windows, walls, doors, and the like. No Faith trying to assemble the Potentials for a night out at the Bronze. No Andrew trying to videotape everything that happened. No sound beside the quiet breaths of many people sleeping, some louder than others.

And still, Buffy was unable to sleep. There was nothing to keep her awake. No noises, no big impending doom – beyond the ubervamps, that is – no…anything. But she didn't feel tired. Her insomnia was after her that night, big time. The digital display on her alarm clock told her it was two in the morning. Rolling over onto her back, Buffy gazed up at her ceiling. She thought back to how easy it had been back when she'd first come to Sunnydale. Just a quick stake through the heart of a vampire and they were dust blowing in the wind.

The mayor turning into a giant snake and trying to eat everyone attending graduation that year was nothing compared to what came after. The Initiatives came, bringing the human-demon-vampire hybrid Adam with them. And after that, the punches just coming harder and harder. Next in line was a goddess. Glory, who wielded a troll hammer that could only be lifted by someone worthy or with great strength, had come after Buffy. All because Buffy had been unwillingly shoved into the responsibility of looked after the Key, who had appeared in the guise of Dawn, Buffy's never-before-seen sister.

And to prevent Glory from killing Dawn and essentially starting the apocalypse, Buffy had jumped straight into the portal that lead into a hell dimension. Passing through the doorway had closed it, but also killed Buffy. But instead of being sent to Hell like the rest of Scoobies thought – she'd dived into a portal directly to Hell, they reasoned – she was sent to Heaven. Where everything was soft and gentle. Where pain and loneliness didn't exist. Buffy had been happy.

Until her friends ripped her out. And she was still in the coffin her body had been buried in. She'd had to dig her way back out, to the surface. Where the town she lived in was in total chaos. None of her friends were there to help her back, ease her suffering. But she was the Slayer. Forever destined to walk alone.

The first person she'd confided in about Heaven was Spike. The rest found out when the town had been taken over by the singing-dancing demon. They all told her they were sorry, but what did they know? They'd never been to Heaven, nor had they died at all. Willow, Xander, and Giles would never be able to fully understand what she, Buffy, went through.

Rising from her bed, Buffy walked over to her window, gazing out at the world in front of her. She'd been once happy to call this Earth home, but since she'd been torn out of Heaven, it held a cruelness she'd never before noticed. Every light was too bright, every darkness too eternal. Before, what had seemed soft and warm and comforting was now just…harsh and cold, unwelcome.

Buffy thought back to Angel, the first person she'd loved since coming to Sunnydale. He would be the only one who would be able to understand even a little of what Buffy was going through. Buffy had sent Angel to a hell dimension, stuck there for only a few months by Earth's calendar. By the hell dimension's, though, it had been a few hundred years. After being stuck there for a seemingly endless amount of time, Earth would have surely seemed like Heaven to him.

But Angel was at least a hundred miles away, in Los Angeles. Plus, it was the middle of the night and the two weren't exactly talking to each other. Angel was busy running the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart. And Buffy was trying to avert the apocalypse – again. Not much, you know?

Watching an ubervamp slink through her yard, Buffy knew she should go down to fight the demon. It had crawled straight of the Hellmouth. The dirty brown rags it wore as clothes hung in tatters, showing off gray skin beneath. Buffy internally knew that she had to fight it, but what would be the point when more would just keep coming and coming, pouring out of the Hellmouth, rampaging throughout the desolate town of Sunnydale.

She had not much care for this world. It was Hell to her, anyway. Everything about it just screamed cruelty and harshness. Why should she try to help Hell? What good would it do her?

Everything in this…this…this 'reality', if it could be called such, repeated one thing over and over in Buffy's head, screaming it at her. "Welcome to Hell," was all she heard.


End file.
